In June 2017, AdWords will begin gradually altering the specifics of the Enhanced CPC bidding strategy. If you're not familiar with the Enhanced CPC (ECPC) bidding strategy, it works by adjusting the bids for clicks that seem more likely to lead to a conversion. Clicks that seem unlikely to convert will get lower bids, while those more likely to convert will have the bid increased.

Currently, the strategy does not increase bids by more than 30% after bid modifiers are applied. Starting in June, this bid cap will be eliminated over time in order to get more clicks that are likely to convert. On Search and Display, the goal of the strategy will be to help you get more conversions while maintaining the same cost-per-acquisition (CPA) as you get with manual bidding. On Shopping, the goal of the strategy remains to help you get more conversions while maintaining the same cost as you get with manual bidding. The strategy will still respect your manual bids by trying to keep the average CPC below the max you set, which is done in the CpcBid.

This change will allow our system more flexibility to improve performance, and we will be monitoring the effects closely to make adjustments as necessary to continue to fine tune ECPC.

If you are an API user, there is no action required on your part for this change to take effect. The setup in the API works the same as before, so you can use your existing version to make any changes you may want to your account as a result of this change in functionality.

If you have any questions about this change or other API features, please post on the forum. - Mike Cloonan, AdWords API Team